Sweetie's Page



This is Sweetie, aka "The Imtimidater". Sweetie was born in March, 2004, somewhere in the Chalmette, LA. Sweetie arrived here in October, 2005 as a Hurricane Katrina refugee. At the point she was known as the "freaked out cattle dog". Now she is just known as the attention deficit cattle dog. Sweetie's story before Hurricane Katrina is a little vague, from what we know she lived in the neighorhood and played with alot of the children there, but didn't really have a home. We don't know where she was during the storm itself. However, when the animal rescue crews and boats came around, she was very freaked out. At one point she was in a rescue boat, but got scared and jumped overboard. She made it to dry land and led the rescue crews on a 2 hour chase around the neighborhood before taking shelter in an abandoned house. The rescuers thought they had her at that point, but she still kept getting away from them inside the house. They finally thought they had her on the second floor, when she ran up into the attic. Fortunately for the rescue guys, she got stuck in the attic. It took 4 guys another hour to get her out of the attic and secured in a crate in the boat.

Once she got to the Tylertown Miss staging area, she was so freaked out she would charge at her caretakers, then cower in the corner. She was moved to a smaller kennel, away from all the people. This kennel just happened to be outside the cat care area, where Rude Ranch's Bob Rude was busy taking care of the rescued cats. Bob would take breaks from the cats and share a few snacks with the dog. She soon became his break buddy. Then one morning, Bob arrived to care for the cats, and the dog and her kennel was gone, and no one in the cat area knew what happened to her.

It took Bob several hours of walking up and down long rows of dog kennels before he found her, actually she found him, by jumping 4 feet straight in the air once she heard Bob's voice. At that point it was pretty decided by everyone at the staging area that the freaked out cattle dog, code named Sweetie would be returning to Maryland with Bob.

Sweetie made the trip back without too many incidents, although Bob did find that she would be so excited about getting out of the car and exploring she wouldn't concentrate on doing her business. This resulted in alot of extra walks and stops along the way.

Since coming to Maryland, Sweetie has settled in.... she has learned how to live with the invisible fence in use here at the shelter, and she has learned that its not always a good idea to catch bumble bees in her mouth. However, her enthusiasm for greeting people hasn't made her the most popular dog here. Something about a big black dog running at people full speed while "smiling" at them tends to put people off a little. Her attempts to race most delivery trucks have also earned her a reputation with the delivery companies. She is also hard on toys... most dog toys have a 42 second life span under her care, although she has two frisbees that have lasted 3 months. We just have to chase her down and get them back from her after she catches them. However, the other dogs love to run and play with her, and she is keeping them young.

Sweetie's Story: UFO'S



Hi! I'm Sweetie! I'm the newest dog here at Rude Ranch. Everyone says I'm attention deficit, but that's not true, I just have a lot to do... These old boy dogs have no concept of all the work I do to protect this place. There are lots of birds I keep in line, bees, butterflys, bicycle riders and those big delivery trucks! They stop at the end of the drive way and just drop stuff off. How am I supposed to inpsect and ok them if they do that? I have to chase them all the way to the end of the road and they still won't let me inspect them. Then there are all the things that go flying overhead.

One time Bruno and I both tried to catch this one thing, it was big and colorful, with a basket at the bottom with people in it. Everynow and then it shot a flame up into the puffy colorful part. I thought it was just a bigger version of that frisbee thing that they keep throwing for me to catch and bring back. Anyway, this thing started hoovering over our yard like it was getting ready to land. It was huge! I ran out to it, barking at it as loud as I could. Bruno even came in for back up. I even tried jumping up to catch it, but it was just out of my reach. At that point the people saw me and I guess I got my point across to them, because all of a sudden the flames shot up into the puffy part and it took off across the street. I was really mad it didn't come down to me!

While I'm on the subject of catching flying objects, what is it with people and the stupid frisbee???? People throw it, I run out, jump to catch it and if I bring it back, they just throw the stupid thing again! And they wonder why I don't give it back!!????!!!! Don't they understand I'm trying to keep everything together, and don't want my frisbee out in the yard, that's why I run out and catch it?